@intparent, We will have a low key winter break. I will probably be working much of the time. The only bad part will be DS will be home from his conservatory program, and will be practicing and recording audition material for summer programs., and he is loud, so she won’d have a ton of quiet there. @WasatchWriter, I will try to suggest freewriting. I suspect she knows what that is, but as you suggested, has used it much. @collegemom3717, I wish it was that she was mostly done and has a couple of supplementals, left. She is still working on the common app ones, too. She has started all of them and finished none. I am going to try to get her to at least let me see her drafts, and let her know I know they are just that. I like the email idea. It seems less formal, and maybe she won’t be so concerned they aren’t perfect. She is a perfectionist and has been struggling to overcome that. This process just makes that challenging.
Ask her to begin writing the essay as a letter to her grandmother. A familiar genre and a kind and familiar audience (assuming a kind granny) often help writers get started.
Aside: I tell dissertation writers to begin with a letter to a family member in which they describe the project, its purpose, the method, the difficulties, organization, etc. I once had a student write a 65 page letter that she then could turn into key parts of the disseration.
@mathmom, I wish I had made her apply to a school that she did not care about EA! At least she would have been farther along, even if she hated what she sent. @mamalion, I will try the letter idea, too.
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If I told my W it was her fault that our child’s college essays weren’t done or that it was her fault child got rejected from college, I don’t know which option would be better for me, simply back away slowly, duck, or run.
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@Jugulator20
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A very wise husband indeed!
Also have her try the pomodoro method: http://lifehacker.com/productivity-101-a-primer-to-the-pomodoro-technique-1598992730
This is why I tell all the kids to do a draft of their essay over the summer.
I personally found it very helpful to start with a few safety schools’ essays, as others here have suggested. In many cases, because these schools wanted students who were genuinely interested in attending rather than students using them as safeties, the prompts were more original/open than those of a few top choices. I was able to bring in topics like a satirical ‘Boston Driver’s Handbook,’ and write something rather off-beat, without feeling overly stressed.
College essays are nothing like normal essays, and writing them is a skill that requires practice. Having written essays for a few schools without worrying about perfecting every detail, I found it a lot easier to make headway on the ones I had a real investment in. The first draft of my only usable UChicago essay was written in 30 minutes just before a meeting with my GC, as were several of what he considers my better essays. Nothing I’ve spent more than 2 hours on has been worth a second draft.
Ultimately, overthinking it is the worst mistake a student can make. Ask your D to write some of the “less important” essays to get in the groove, write whatever comes to mind for “important” schools, and after 4-5 rejected drafts she’ll end up with one that works.
Two of my kids did theirs at the end of December and did fine with admissions. Sometimes a deadline helps. I wouldnt stress over this.
Would it help if you and/or your D spent some time on the college websites, looking for departments, programs, or ECs that appeal to her? Then she could build the essays around those specific facts, meaning that the “why college X” essays could mention specific programs that could be tied to her background, and essays about her ECs could bring in information on what is going on at the college in that EC, etc.? If she looked at the task as writing more about the college than only about herself, maybe that would be a better starting point?
If my husband had said that to me, there would be serious issues. He’s doing nothing to help and then blaming you, that’s not ok. That kind of unfair and ridiculous pressure has to be collaterally blowing over onto your kid, and that’s what I would reply to him with. Then I’d schedule couples therapy for both of us because wow, he’s a jerk.
If it were my kid (and it probably will be), I’d say “what do you need from us to help you finish on time?”
If the answer is nothing, then it is nothing. If the answer is to be quiet and leave her alone, then do that. Whatever process she has to put herself through to get it done has to be her process.
Are there any activities on her schedule (whether academic, social, etc.) that you can cut to give her some breathing room?
She doesn’t need time to finish her essays (she has time- nothing is due tomorrow). She needs mental space. Everyone gets over-committed this time of year, but if there are events she is attending or programs she’s showing up for out of a sense of obligation (except for grandma’s 90th birthday- that’s a genuine obligation) maybe she’d feel less frazzled but cutting down on her calendar?
I go through phases where I can’t seem to nail down an important work priority. Sometimes saying no to five or six things is all I need to regain control and getting moving again. I need to practice- I’m a people pleaser and I don’t like telling a neighbor that I can’t attend her improv workshop performance, or tell a cousin that I’m not coming to the cookie baking evening at her house. But a couple of hours of unstructured time often clears the cobwebs.
@MotherOfDragons DH would help, but 2 anxious people with similar temperaments is a recipe for disaster. I think part of the issue is that he wants to help, but really can’t, and I help differently than he would. I know it is her stuff to deal with, but watching my child suffer is hard, and I do not think she knows what I can do to help. This thread has given me some ideas I can pass along.
@blossom I wish there were things she could just give up, but the thing she would pick is school. The other things she does, in general she does because she likes them. I have given her a pass on family stuff if she wants, or needs it, but she likes the family, so that hasn’t really helped much. Therein lies part of the issue. DH wants her to give up that stuff, and thinks if she had more time she would get this done. I know her better., and it is funny because he knows how he can have time and still not be able to focus on a task because of anxiety.
The good part is that DH and I had a talk, and he has just accepted that this might mean an all-nighter with me at her side over winter break, but that there is nothing to be gained by getting upset.
One of my Ds is a procrastinator, the other is a planner who typically gets things done early. Both of them finished many of their apps near the mom-required 24 hours before the school deadline. When they complained about my early deadline I explained to them that we were in the middle of nowhere and if the internet got flaky we would have to go somewhere else to submit the apps.
These are really good tips for a junior who is starting to think about college essays. Thanks for the interesting comments!
Thanks, @Snowme! That made me laugh. I had better make sure there is a mom required deadline of at least 24 hours ahead!
Yeah, we’re all about the more-than-24-hours-in-advance deadline. Preferably more. Like, on a Saturday night as opposed to a Tuesday night, etc. etc. etc.
The 24 hours was a compromise with D1. I tried for more, but that didn’t fly. D2 wasn’t going to agree to any more lead time than D1.
Thank heavens DS’s AP English teacher used the common ap essay prompts as an assignment to get the students started on the college essay genre early in the year in a lower pressure situation. But as in your DD’s case the deadline is nearing, try humor. Have her give them silly or insulting titles, or insert the word zombie or vampire in every third sentence of the draft, or have her write a blatantly inappropriate draft, or something else just to break the tension and get the words flowing. (Just make sure any zombies are removed by the final version).
What we did last year when my son was applying and couldn’t get started on his essays, is look back at past essays he had written in high school that he liked a lot and could possibly be used for college admissions. He found one that fit the bill and got to work editing and changing it. The funny thing is that it didn’t end up being used for applications at all, but it got him into the groove of working and writing, and got him thinking about what WOULD be a good essay to write in its place. It was sort of a jumpstart to the process, and it went fine from there.
My D16’s CA essay was a rewrite add on of an essay that she had written for an music audition, an audition that she failed so it fit for the “Tell us about a time you failed”. From that essay she developed a few supplemental essays by expanding on specific ideas in the essay. Once she got going things came much easier.
She also had a college essay writing weekend with her friends… several of them holed up in our family room for 36 hours and wrote/bounced ideas off of each other/eat pizza/proof read etc. Nobody was allowed to leave until everyone had at least one essay completely done.
For about a year prior to college essay writing I had been keeping a semi formal list of essay prompts. Every time we as a family said “oh that would make a good college essay” or thought some experience we had would be good fodder for an essay I wrote it down. I would occasionally email her the list and she would roll her eyes, but it was an idea from that list that prompted the essay that she wrote for the music audition.